StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty

March 1998 - It's been twelve seriously long years since the first release of the innovative RTS invaded computers across the world. But the time is near for the cycle to be reborn, and in a trilogy this time.

The 27th of July 2010 is the date that one of the biggest games of the year is being launched, StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty hits game shops simultaneously in several countries worldwide.

The first episode of a trilogy, Wings of Liberty, embarks fans into a galactic warfare between three races: the Terran, Protoss and Zerg. Its single player campaign expands the Starcraft universe, four years after the Brood War.

Jim Raynor and his rebels will take mercenary jobs to increase their credits by retrieving Xel'Naga artifacts and relics from several fringe worlds occupied by the Tal'darim protoss. However, these missions will put the Terran rebels in conflict with the Zerg who also seek the relics.

Sporting a energetic 3D-graphics(DX9) engine, StarCraft II will once again center on the clash between the protoss, terrans, and zerg, with each side deploying legions of veteran, upgraded, and new unit types.

Great online play for StarCraft II will be available through a new version of Battle.net, Blizzard Entertainment's world-renowned gaming service. Battle.net has been redesigned from the ground up to be the premier online gaming destination for Blizzard gamers, with several enhancements and new features, such as voice communication, cloud file storage, leagues and ladders, achievements, stat-tracking, and more.

The new 3D engine does run great, with units looking detailed, landscapes looking imposing, and explosions looking magnificent. As a Guru of 3D, we do feel a lot more could have been done the put more emphasis on the overall ambience, but we moan about that all the time though!

But there's nothing more fun to see huge armies meet battling in a hailstorm of laser fire and blasts and detonations of explosive materials. Whatever you do, the game runs really well even with 50-plus units on screen at once we didn't experience any major hiccups in frame rate at all.